Seeing she wouldn’t be needed, Lynn ran around to take over driving duties while we threw our very unhappy ‘bangers in the back. There was a moment of amusement when one that could still talk began yelling for help. Yes, I used an illegal knife-hand strike to the throat on him since we were already inside the van with them. Lynn who had been watching giggled in that weird maniacal way she has. I pulled the strike or the guy would have choked out.
“Nicely done. I’ll take off one poke for that strike.”
“Wonderful.”
She drove away slowly, turning to circle the parking lot for a viewing of possible witness problems. Between the hoodies and their blaring Buick, they had cleared out the parking lot in that corner. We left their Buick still blasting bass loud enough to vibrate the parking lot surface. Lynn turned out onto 9th Street, heading for Clinton Square Park with Clint next to her. Although our action van was a huge converted delivery truck, eight guys in the back filled our roomy rear compartment to max capacity.
Jesse watched with nightstick stun-gun while Dev and I stripped off hoodies and caps. We plastic tied their hands behind their backs, and ankles together. The picture taking session took only a few minutes. It probably wasn’t necessary. We recognized these bums from the ‘knockout’ takedown at the mall. Devon gripped the knockout perp by the throat. He had been the one who put Rose in the coma. I intended to find out how the hell any black robed moron could have possibly let him back on the street. Dev looked at me. I nodded. Knockout boy was heading for the last roundup.
Dev’s huge gloved hand around the guy’s throat started tightening ever so slowly. Knockout boy’s eyes bulged, his lips moving to plead, but that ship had sailed. His mouth then opened, tongue extending, in a final failed try for air. A slight gurgling rasp was audible, but not much more, as Devon ended Knockout boy’s time on earth in a very satisfying trip to hell. His companions, leaning against the van wall began pleading the moment they saw Devon release the bulging eyed victim to collapse across his buddy’s lap.
By then we were rounding Clinton Square Park. No one in their right mind frequents Clinton Square at night in this neighborhood… except of course for monsters. The boys in the back had a myriad of broken body parts. We did not spare the rod with these children. We had remained silent during our entire encounter. No connection could be made linking us with Danessa. I had decided on a general decree before we tossed them out. Their problem in the future is that we would be tracking them from now on. A return to old ways would be a death sentence.
“We’ll be watching you assholes closely. If you don’t want to end up like homeboy here, change your lifestyles. It’s not a threat. It’s a guarantee. If we have to meet up again, I’ll take you shitheads to the desert, skin you alive, and stake you out over red ant hills. We’ll camp out and watch you die. Any questions?”
“Who the fuck are you!?”
My right hand palm smash into his face drove my questioner’s nose bone into his brain. His head rebounded off the van wall, and back into a death relaxed chin tuck on his chest. “Any more questions?”
Silence… if there had been crickets in the park we would have been able to hear them. “Okay… I think we have an understanding. You three survivors have been warned. Take the warning back to your gangbanging buddies. We’re on the hunt.”
Lynn slowed to a five mile per hour crawl in front of Clinton Square. I opened the sliding door, and we tossed all of them out, living and dead. They all hit with dead cat bounces. Lynn sped up once again. At a safe distance heading back to Fruitvale Station, Lynn parked along a darkened street. I got out with brake cleaner spray and a rag to wash off the spray paint covering the license plates while everyone took off their masks and put away equipment. Lynn put in a call to Danessa telling her to head home. It only took a few minutes before we continued on to the Fruitvale Station where we had left the Toyota Rav.
“Damn, that was so good,” Dev spoke up first. “I’ll clean the van, and take it to my friend tomorrow. I’ll have him fix it and paint it. I’m sick of the gunmetal gray. How about black?”
“Sure, Dev. Thanks for coming with us on this. It turned out perfect.”
“You sure know how to end a question and answer session, Cheese,” Lynn said.
“There were three survivors,” Jess said. “That’s three more than there probably should have been.”
“We needed the message to make it back to the rest of them, Jess,” I replied. “I think they got the idea that time, but who knows? We may have to make a few more gang adjustments. How did that side trip affect your out of phase feelings, Clint?”
“I feel a balance in the cosmos,” Clint replied. “Hell of an ending to the day.”
“Amen to that,” Dev added.
“I don’t know, brothers. Cruella didn’t get to disembowel anyone,” Jess said. “Want us to pick up a stranger for you on the way to your car, Crue?”
Even Lynn laughed.
* * *
I entered the house quietly as possible. It was nearly midnight. With our guests leaving in the morning, I figured everyone would be in bed. They were – all but Lora. She sat in the kitchen sipping wine. I went over to the refrigerator and retrieved a beer. Since Lora wasn’t saying anything, I didn’t want to ruin the moment. I sat down next to her.
“A woman asked for you on a body-guarding and escort gig. It’s San Francisco on Monday and Tuesday.”
Uh oh. I feel a disturbance in the Force. Maybe Clint transferred his bad karma load over into my keeping. “Asked for me by name?”
“It seems she knew you from another escort job a few years ago.”
Oh boy. This is like pulling teeth. I took a long pull on my beer, thinking I might need my Beam brother for this interrogation. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about, or are we playing twenty questions?”
“Her name’s Natalie Radcliff. She’s visiting from the UK. Apparently, you knew her intimately.”
* * *
Yeah, I did, and it was good. I remembered Nat. I gulped down half my beer as a slide show instantly began playing in my head. Long blonde hair, five feet, eight inches of sculpted beauty with blue eyes, and the most charming English accent, with a breathless quality that made me cling to every word out of her mouth. She was a reporter with the BBC doing a piece on East Oakland. They wanted her to go into the worst areas: the bars, the gang hangouts, where the Hell’s Angels original place was… that kind of thing. When Tess’s firm asked for a bid on the job, Tommy was the only bidder. No one wanted the job. Man… what a payday that was. Tommy took her to a lounge on 38th and Penniman. I was to arrive like Crocodile Dundee. The guys frequenting the bar were typical of the neighborhood at that time – bad asses with a chip on their shoulder. Tommy played it for all it was worth.
Yeah, Tommy and I did a lot of messing around back then. I was street fighting steady then, a match or two a week. We were the best and most recommended bond skip guys in the area, and Tommy made sure we were paid for our expertise. He and I had just added the escort part to our resume. We were known, and feared. Most times when a skip saw me and Tommy, he gave it up, and came along quietly, because the skip knew he was coming on his feet, or on his back. We were having fun with the new escort gig, and Tommy wanted the BBC Reporter looking for adventure in Oakland more than anything. He made me watch the Crocodile Dundee movie and the original bar scene. I thought his idea was funny about setting up the UK visitor.
Unfortunately for Tommy, a few guys showed up Tommy had played for a nice piece of change back in the day. They were raw about it, saw Tommy, and when I walked in, he had Natalie behind his back facing off with three of the ugliest dudes I’d ever seen. She looked a hell of a lot more scared than that woman in the Croc movie. Tommy smiled when he saw me. His old friends turned, saw me, and warned me off.
“Stay out of this Harding!” The speaker was nearly as big as me, packing an extra fifty pounds. I recognized him, a pug name of Bronco Mulligan. “We have a sco
re to settle with Sands. It’s none of your business.”
“Tommy’s my man, Bronc. You know that. No one settles a score with him, unless they want me involved. Walk away. Have a drink on me. Let this go.”
“Who is this cupcake, Bronc?” The second guy moved on me. I planted him with a right to the temple that dropped the talker at Bronc’s feet.
It was on then, but only for a short time. Tommy simply guarded our client while watching for a play from someone else in the bar. Bronc took a left hook blow square in the face, and went down spurting blood on his ass. The third guy was pulling a knife, but he wasn’t quick or skilled. My right went in under his heart, a full power strike that cracked a rib, turned his face white, and had him gasping for a breath while writhing on the floor. I did a weapons hunt, stripping the Bronc and his boys of knives, and an odd looking .32 caliber ACP pistol. The lounge had a bartender named Jim Canzonetta, a retired Navy Chief Warrant Officer.
Jim threw me a wet bar towel. “Give this to Bronc, John. I don’t want blood all over everything.”
“Thanks, Jim.” I pressed the wet towel up against Bronc’s face. He gripped it dazedly. “Damn it, Bronc! Why the hell didn’t you have a free drink, and call it a day? Where the hell you get this little .32? I haven’t seen one of these before.”
“It belonged to my old man.”
I popped the magazine, and cleared the chamber. “Neat. I’ll leave it with Jim. Pick it up tomorrow.”
“Okay… thanks.”
I helped breathless get comfortable until he started taking in air more normally. Then I helped him up into a chair. By then, the unconscious one began to stir. He didn’t have a clue where the hell he was. I got him into a sitting position where he looked at me without recognition. “Where am I… who the hell are you?”
“I’m cupcake. Make any bad moves, and I’ll drop kick you into next week. Understand?”
He nodded, his knees up, and his head in his hands. By then Bronc had pulled himself up onto a chair. I took the .32 ACP over to the bar. Jim took it and the magazine without comment and stashed it behind the bar. I put a fifty on the bar. “Give me another towel and I’ll wipe up the Bronc residue, Jim.”
“Thanks, John.” Jim plopped down another wet one while slipping the fifty into his pocket. “Want to run a tab on Tommy and your guest?”
“Yeah. It’s a business meeting we were having a little fun with, but we’ll make sure to clear out before any more problems appear.” I wiped up the blood spatter around where Bronc went down. Jim held up a plastic lined trash can and I threw the bloody towel in it.
Jim put the trash can in its place again. “What problems. Take your time. What can I get you?”
“A couple of Buds, and a Seven/Seven for the lady.”
In a minute I had the beers and drink. “Get Bronc and the boys whatever they want to drink on my tab too.”
“Sure you want to do that, John?”
“We’re all friends now, right Bronc?” I leaned down closer to Bronc. “Unless you want to end up gutted somewhere dark and nasty, you need to let bygones be bygones, right?”
“Yeah… I got it.”
Bronc’s companions looked complacent. The four other guys not in the action grinned at me, and continued watching the Golden State Warriors game Jim had playing on the screen over the bar. I walked the drinks over to the table Tommy had seated our client at.
“How’s the hands?”
I set the drinks down, flexing my fingers. “Not bad, T. I ordered you a Seven/Seven, Miss. Is that okay?”
She drained half of it as I sat down, blinking a little. Jim doesn’t short his customers on the booze in mixed drinks. “Yes… it is.”
“This is John Harding,” Tommy said. “John, meet Natalie Radcliff with the BBC. I didn’t figure on Bronc tonight.”
I made sure I didn’t have any blood on my mitt, and reached across to shake hands with Natalie. “Pleased to meet you.”
“I am very glad to make your acquaintance, John. I never expected to get right to it so quickly. I should have had the good sense to bring along my cameraman. What were those fellows so upset about?”
“The one with the bloody nose and his two friends bet five hundred on a dock worker at a local back alley street fighting meet. We didn’t know the guy, so John couldn’t do any playacting for the fans. He knocked the guy cold in under a minute. That was a year ago. Bronc and his guys are still pissed. It was just business. The dock worker never held a grudge. We see him around town. Dev never had any bad thoughts about us.”
“You fight for money in back alleys? That seems a bit odd.”
“Most of the fights take place in an old warehouse,” Tommy replied. “John went into mixed martial arts, but his first fight ended in a death. He and I have been together ever since.”
“A man died in the match? How horrid for you.”
Huh? “Actually… the referee was slow stopping the bout.” I remember wondering at the time why it would be horrid for me. I’ve become more empathetic since then. Yeah… right.
“May I attend one of these street fighting brawls with my cameraman?”
“Sure,” Tommy replied. “It’s illegal, so anything you record can only play when you get home. The Oakland politicos show up for most of the fights, but they would shut us down flat if they get wind someone was exposing them. I’d have to ask you to blur the crowd faces.”
“We can do that of course,” Natalie agreed, draining the rest of her drink. “May I have another of these?”
“Sure.” I picked up her glass, and returned to the bar. Bronc and the boys were sipping doubles at a table. They kept their eyes on the basketball game. Jim took the glass from me.
“That was quick. Tell her to sip this next one if you don’t want to carry her out,” Jim warned me with a grin.
“Excellent advice, but what makes you think I’d mind carrying her out?” He was still laughing when I left with the drink.
“Sip this, Ms. Radcliff,” I told her. “The bartender doesn’t spare the booze in the drinks.”
Natalie blushed. “Thank you, John. Please call me Nat.”
“Sure. Besides a back alley brawl, did Tommy go over with you where we need to take you for your report?”
“Yes. I gave him a list of spots, highlighting the contrast between the seedier places in Oakland as compared to tourist attractions like Jack London Square. Are you married, John?”
“No. Do I need to be in order to do the escort job?”
Nat chuckled, hiding her mouth with her hand. “Of course not. I was curious. Your lifestyle would not be one conducive to marriage I would imagine.”
“Maybe not.”
“There’s a redhead named Tess, working at the firm who recommended us,” Tommy said. “She has her eye on John.”
“Tommy and Tess hammer out our bill together,” I added. “It seldom ends well for Tess, because we have no need to negotiate.”
“What John means is when Tess’s firm comes to us it means no one else will take the ticket,” Tommy explained. “Tess tries to bargain basement us every time, and every time she comes up short. She’s a slow learner, or her bosses are. I’m sorry about the unconventional demonstration here in the bar. I had wanted to give you a little ‘Crocodile Dundee’ hint by bringing you here, because I wasn’t sure how seedy of an establishment you meant in your request. I didn’t know a few of our unhappy street-fighting fans would show up to school me.” Tommy pulled aside his jacket front, letting her see his Glock in a belt holster. “You were in no danger, but I didn’t want to shoot anyone either. John here has good timing. He always has.”
“Oh, you!” Nat was amused by Tommy’s admission. He is a charmer. “I loved that movie. It was half the reason I asked to take this assignment. The bar scene at the beginning is one of my favorite scenes of all time. So, you two thought to play me, but it turns out I have engaged a real ‘Croc’ for my report.”
Tommy shook his head. “John’s not an a
ctor in a studio. These places you want to visit are dangerous. The people who frequent them don’t take kindly to strangers. It is reality that you will be in danger at times. Oakland is the per-capita murder capital of the USA.”
“I have already looked over your terms, Tommy. You two are hired. Shall I engage a driver?”
“Actually… we use the dockworker, Devon Constantine, as our driver. He’s rated with every vehicle from a motorcycle to a tank.”
“Devon? You mean the Dev you knocked out?”
“It was just business, Nat,” I explained. “Dev’s an ex-Army Ranger. He got out of the street fighting. We hire him as a driver whenever we do escort work. We have to have a driver who doesn’t scare if something bad pops up, and can be trusted. Dev doesn’t scare, and I’d trust him with my life.”
“That is very odd indeed. I like this very much. Tommy, would you mind if John drove me back to my hotel?”
“Sorry,” Tommy replied. “John can’t do that tonight.”
“Oh… how disappointing. Why is that?”
“I’ll be driving Bronc and his buddies home,” I answered. “In fact, they’ve already thrown down three doubles each already. If we’re through here, I’ll hit the road. Tommy will see you safely to your hotel.”
Nat turned to Tommy in bewilderment. “Is he always like this?”
“Do you mean avoiding being alone with very attractive women, or driving guys he’s beat up home?”
“Don’t mind, Tommy. Like we’ve explained, it’s just business. I don’t want Bronc and the boys to wreck my bartending friend Jim’s bar. I’ll settle up, T.”
As I stood up, Nat grabbed my hand. She pressed a card into it. “John, this is the hotel I will be staying at. Please come over and let me interview you a bit tonight before we begin tomorrow with my report.”
Tommy was grinning ear to ear, listening to Nat’s plea. I gripped the card. “I have no objection to that. See you tomorrow, T. I will see you in an hour or so, Nat.”
“I look forward to it, John.”
Hard Case IV: A Violent Life (John Harding Series Book 4) Page 27
